I have begun now a new thread, which I anticipate will be a rather long one, on the book I am currently working on, which I have tentatively titled (recognizing that my tentative titles rarely actually become the title!) The Triumph of Christianity.   I indicated in my previous post that I wrote up a prospectus to give to publishers in order to see if they were interested in offering a contract for the book.  The prospectus ended up being about 17 pages long (double-spaced).  As I mentioned already, the point of the prospectus is to show a potential publisher what the book is about, how it matters, and why it would be really interesting for regular ole readers (as opposed to irregular ole scholars). The following was the very beginning of my Prospectus, the opening salvo. ****************************************************************************************** In my public talks over the past ten years I have been asked one question about my research more than any other, a question that seems to arise out of any topic I address, whether it is the [...]

When my agent Roger and I decided that we might want to explore the possibility of going with a different publisher, the first step was to come up with a book proposal to shop around.   For ten years or so I had been wanting to write a particular book, but had always put it off because it had seemed like such a MAJOR undertaking.   I came to think that this was the perfect time to pursue it, to propose doing a new book on a completely new topic with a new publisher as a new beginning. The book was/is to be about how Christianity spread throughout the Roman world, until, less than 400 years after it started, it had taken over and the Roman Empire had officially become Christian.  In my mind I was thinking about a title like “The Triumph of Christianity: How Faith in Jesus Destroyed the Religions of Rome.”  It would be unlike anything I had ever done. The strategy was for me to write a 15-20 page prospectus in which I [...]